


The Warrior

by ntldr



Series: The SARMA universe [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: youngling Hot Rod
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6782326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ntldr/pseuds/ntldr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War has a nasty habit of making life Hell, especially when one has a youngling in tow.  The journey to find Sideswipe continues to get more complicated for Sunstreaker and Hot Rod.</p><p>Set in the SARMA comic series by greenapplefreak of deviantArt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Warrior

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the SARMA universe](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/195529) by greenapplefreak. 



_((AN: Before you read, head over to greenapplefreak's page on deviantArt and familiarize yourself with her comics about Sunstreaker and Hot Rod.  The established universe will be difficult to understand without them.))_

"Vroxen.  Patch over one eye.  Scarred. Carrying a weapons packet.  Doesn't appear to be part of a unit.  Mercenary or bodyguard. Keep an eye on him.  Don't care much about him, but he's got to be guarding valuables."

The Cybertronian merchant spoke subtly into a communicator in his palm while he rested his back against one of the supports of his stand, his feet crossed on the counter in front of him. The traders' outpost on Asteroid Drega-3 was barely more than a glorified pit stop, with crews more concerned about repairs, refuels and a chance to get off-board and stretch their legs.  Not that there weren't a lack of options for those with a few credits to spend, or treasures to barter. The merchant's stand was one of at least twenty on the thoroughfare on the port, though his was smaller compared to those selling used spacecraft parts, which had the bulk of the customers.  Those who wandered further down the path were the curious or the naive, and could be coerced into paying ridiculous prices for items they'd find for cheap back in civilization.

That was only half of his business, though. His optics flitted away from the Vroxen guard to one of his own species, and he lifted his hand again to murmur into it, waiting until the hum of the engine of a heavy transport moving overhead had passed.

"Cybertronian.  Silver.  Decepticon.  Extended claws on each hand."

He watched him a moment longer, then shrugged.

"Nevermind.  He's a regular."

As he passed, the Decepticon nodded to him, and the merchant smirked with a quick mock salute, making the mech scowl as he stalked off and the merchant grin even wider.  Drega-3 and the surrounding asteroids were enforced as Neutral territory.  The outpost was too remote for either of the waring factions of Cybertron's endless civil war to worry with governing it.  It had slipped back and forth from Decepticon to Autobot hands and back for vorns, before the locals had finally kicked out all militants, and neither side saw a point in retaking it, not with more vital and stable energon deposits desperately needed.  More Decepticons than Autobots had been passing through recently, if that gave any indication to how the war was going, and that suited him just fine.

And speaking of Autobots...

"Cybertronian.  Gold.  Autobot.  Pair of headfins.  Frontliner unit."

The merchant's assessment of his fellow mech came to a halt when he realized that both of them had locked optics.  The other mech had been walking a safe distance behind the Decepticon before he'd spotted another one of his own species.  The merchant's yellow optics widened briefly as the blue ones stayed on him, the Autobot heading right for him.

"Scrap."

Swinging his feet down from the counter, he sat up and gave the Autobot a friendly grin as the mech stepped up to his stall.  He was already carrying a pack over one arm; likely spacecraft parts that wouldn't fit into his subspace pockets.  He spoke up before the merchant could recommend a weapon based on his size and build.

"I'm looking for game chips.  Sell any?"

...Not what he was expecting from a warrior. The merchant raised an eyebrow ridge before plastering his smile back on his face.

"Lucky for you, friend, I do seem to have some packed away here.  Let's see..."  He reached under the counter, and after digging around, pulled out a worn box littered with all sorts of entertainment chips.  "Sorry, I usually get mechs looking for weapons or parts, or memorabilia from home. Not game chips."

The Autobot ignored him as he pawed through the box.  After a few minutes of silence between them, filled only with the usual rumblings of nearby spacecraft, the merchant cleared his vocalizer.

"You know...most mechs consider game chips to be a waste of time, with the factions being focused on training and all for the war."

"Mmm."

"But I'll bet this isn't for you, friend.  No, you look like somebody who's expecting to fight, and makes sure that he stays in top form."

"Hmm."

"Any particulars, then? Something for an injured comrade, to let him pretend that he's still in the good fight?"

The Autobot paused.

"I thought so."  Pulling the box back slightly, the merchant fished through the chips, and came up with six of them, which he put to the side.  "There we are.   _Death Race, Mech Hunt, Warriors of Twenty-Four, The Darkness, Kaon by Night,_ and _Cranker's Bad Fuzor Day._  How about these?"

The mech stared at the offered chips for a while, taking in their names, descriptions, and the small title pictures on the top.  The visuals were similar: dark, the titles in an eerie font, with a warrior mech holding up a gun or other weapon in various poses in the center, one grasping the mutilated head of an enemy.  He studied them a while, then, with a noncommittal shrug, he went back to pawing through the box.  The merchant let out a small vent of frustration and let him have at it, until he came up with two more chips and handed them over.

"How much are these?"

"... _Turbofox Hunt 85_ and _Mighty Mechanics_ ?"  The merchant refreshed his optics at the pastel-colored chips, one with a visual of a brightly-painted turbofox and the other of a cartoonish mech grinning as he held up an oversized wrench.  "Your friend has weird tastes."

"They're not for a friend.  I'm traveling alone."

"Oh? You, uh, ever play _Mighty Mechanics_ before?  It's meant for younglings, or for the cortex-disabled...HRK!"

The merchant's torso dug into the edge of his counter as he was grabbed and pulled towards the Autobot's face.  The golden mech narrowed his optics dangerously, and spoke quietly and smoothly.

"I happen to enjoy _Mighty Mechanics_ , _friend._  Are you calling me cortex-disabled?"

"Gah! N-No, of course not!"

He came down hard as the Autobot dropped him.

"Then do me a favor and shut it.  How much?"

"...Twenty credits per chip," the merchant grumbled with a wince as he rubbed his back.

The mech pulled out forty from his subspace pocket. Then, after a hesitation, pulled out another forty, and added _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ and _Cranker's Bad Fuzor Day_ to his pile.

"Thanks."

As the Autobot turned and walked away, the merchant settled back down again, and grimaced at a squawking laugh coming from the communicator.  He grunted as he swung his feet back up again to make himself comfortable and hide that he was speaking into his hand.

"Pleasant fellow, isn't he?  No...No, watch him."  He watched the retreating back of the golden mech.  "See what ship he gets on.  I've got a good feeling about this one."

He rubbed his chin.

“He looks familiar.”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The hiss of the ship's airlock shutting behind the Autobot ended with frustrated groan from somewhere deeper in the ship.  Sunstreaker was on alert at once.  He froze, one hand gripping tighter to the strap of his pack, the other automatically reaching for the subspace pocket holding his knife.  

"You messed it up!"

Someone pushed a chair aside and the youngling grunted as his smaller feet clattered on the floor.  Sunstreaker's posture untensed, his free hand lifting away from his pocket to readjust his pack as he started forward again and spoke up.

"I told you, if someone comes on the ship unannounced, you need to find a place to hide and comm me."

"If someone snuck aboard, they'd either be so quiet that I'd never hear them, or they'd bust the door in and mess up my structure even worse!"

"Structure?"

The hall from the airlock to the cargo hold didn't take long to traverse. In a few strides Sunstreaker was standing inside the enormous hold taking up most of the bottom level of the commandeered ship.  Right now the hold was less than a fourth of the way filled, mostly with secured energon cubes and a few more crates of extra supplies, some that had come with the ship, others that had been found or traded along the way.  Hot Rod knelt down by one of crates that made his impromptu table, and was scooping up cards that had scattered over the floor.

Sunstreaker eyed the remaining cards laying on crate as he set his pack down nearby.  "You were trying to build something with my cards?"  He was only slightly perturbed that the orange youngling had been playing with one of his belongings; the card deck was worn down and the damage made some cards recognizable from the back.  Hot Rod couldn't do much worse to it other than to destroy it.

"I DID build something.  Until the airlock shook and brought it down!"

"Primus, you really were bored," he snickered as he pulled out items from his pack and put them away neatly inside a crate.  “I've got more parts being delivered in the next couple of cycles.  Then we'll get out of here.”

"Staying cooped up in here _sucks."_

"But you did as I asked.  Thanks."

"You're not welcome."  Hot Rod scowled as he straightened up a handful of cards and put them back in their holder.  "Why won't you teach me how to play this?" he asked as he held up the deck towards Sunstreaker. “I've seen you shuffle and practice with them.”

"It's not much fun unless you're betting and winning something. And I've got something better than that, and now that I'm back, you can make as much noise with them as you want.”  

"With what?"

"I did promise to get you something if you stayed aboard, didn't I?"

Sunstreaker took a second to reorganize several parts and give Hot Rod time to comprehend what he'd said.  Even he couldn't resist a twitch of a grin at the youngling's excited squeak as understanding dawned on him, though he immediately frowned and shut the crate lid as Hot Rod ran up and tried to reach into his subspace pocket.

"What'd you get, what'd you get?!"

"Hands off the paint," he snapped, then snatched Hot Rod's hand and flicked it away when the youngling attempted to pickpocket him.  "Hey!"

"What'd you get?! C'mon, show me!" The youngling was bouncing up and down on his feet,  dancing back and forth, the outburst of delight quickly making up for him being depressively quiet while stuck in the hold all day.  "What'd you get?!"

Sunstreaker considered waiting to hand over the chips until Hot Rod had calmed down, but decided against it. The youngling had done as he'd asked for a whole cycle, which was a rare thing for the animated young mech, and not refocusing his attention on something stimulating after being left alone for so long might send him into a fit of rebellion.  

Getting off of Drega-3 would be impossible if Hot Rod decided to take a stroll around the port due to overwhelming curiosity and a necessary requirement to antagonize the Autobot guarding him.

“Enough! Keep your hands off me, and I'll show you up on the bridge!”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

It took some configuration of wiring underneath the console desks, but Sunstreaker was able to hook up  a couple of ports for gaming controls. The controls had been a lucky find in a room belonging to one of the ship's previous tenants, along with some other baubles and toys that were now sitting in Hot Rod's quarters.  The Autobot and youngling had debated whether there had been another youngling on the ship previously, to which Sunstreaker had explained that not all mechs grew out of a love of toys and gaming.  For example, Sunstreaker was honestly looking forward to getting a game chip running again. The last time he'd seen a chip being played, Sentinel Prime had still been alive.

The largest hologram display would be between the tiers on the ship's bridge, and though the flashes of light would surely be seen by anyone walking by on Drega-3's port, it didn't matter now whether the public knew that someone was aboard or not.  Sunstreaker pressed in the chip for _Warriors of Twenty-Four,_ then slouched back into the commander's chair with one controller in his lap, the other held by Hot Rod from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. The excited youngling had been bouncing around in glee too much for him take a seat properly.

The game booted up, the hologram displaying the splash screen and the list of warriors available to play.  In the background two of them faced off, demonstrating some of the moves available during gameplay, from punches to kicks to special attacks to one-hit takedowns.

“This game's meant for older mechs,” Sunstreaker explained as he and Hot Rod browsed through the list, each warrior posing as a cursor scrolled over them.  “This might be a little much for you.”

“How so?”

“It can get violent.”

“But somebody like you or Sideswipe would play it?”

Sunstreaker lifted an eye-ridge at the mention of his twin.  “Maybe, if we had the time.  Sideswipe does like--”

He was cut off by an energon-curtling scream from the display.  The two warriors were finishing up their demonstration, one by grabbing the other by his helm, and slamming him face-first into the ground with a sickening crunch.  The screech cut off abruptly, the losing mech laying on the ground, unmoving, while the winner punched an energon-stained fist in the air.

The Autobot and the youngling stared at the screen, dumbfounded.  Sunstreaker cleared his vocalizer before speaking again.

“Like I said, not meant for you.  But I've got other games--”

“COOL!!”

Hot Rod's cursor beeped as it swung around to click the winner's name on the list, the name flashing briefly before the warrior jumped forward and posed again, ready to fight.

“...You're sure?”  Sunstreaker considered the character briefly, wondering what it said about Hot Rod for him to immediately choose the bloodied winner, before shrugging and moving his own cursor.  “Alright...”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Two pairs of feet clapped along the pier, marching alongside one another.  One mech, tall, clawed and painted silver, moved with the ease of authority. The other one, thin, spindly and light blue, twitched his head and one optic every so often, his fingers shaking and his hands randomly balling into fists before releasing again. No one tried to stop them, or even gave them more than a quick glance.

No one would think twice about a pair of Decepticons headed towards a Decepticon-marked cargo vessel.

The first one pointed a three-fingered claw towards the bridge windows.  “Look.  Somebody's using the main computer.  And if our mech's all alone--”

“We s-s-s-stroll right in?”

“Like we own it, Quake.”

The trembling Decepticon grinned, though a corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably as he spoke.  “I w-w-want the know w-w-what he did with the old crew, Talon.”

“For all we know, he's one of ours, working as a spy, and forgot to change his insignia.  Or he's a defector and the captain has the new guy running errands.  But that's where you come in.”

Talon shoved the smaller mech forward.  Quake squawked, stumbling several steps, before glaring over his shoulder.

“Don't be so p-p-pushy!”

“Quit yapping, or I'll give you more than a little poke.  Do your thing.”

Quake grumbled, his shoulders quaking in irritation, but he did as he was told.  He turned back to the ship, and, stepping up to it, placed his shaking hands on the platted surface, bracing himself.

Instantly his trembling stopped, and his optics shut off.

The air hummed with the sounds of engines near and far, and the chatter of people much further down the pier.  Talon waited patiently, crossing his arms in front of his chest, pushing his weight gently from foot to foot as he watched Quake work.  The long claws tapped on the armor plates wrapped around his forearms, yet he didn't dare to interrupt him. The other mech had gone silent and still, his head bowed forward as he concentrated.

His mouth twitched again.

“S-S-Screaming.  Talon?  There's m-m-mechs screaming in there.”

“Screaming about what?”

“I dunno.  I-I-It sounds like s-s-someone's dying.”

Talon's eyeridges shot straight up.  “Can you count how many voices there are?”

“Two.  No, four.  Four, four, four, f-f-f-four.  Yeah, four.  They're cheering on w-whoever's fighting.”

The taller mech refreshed his optics.  “There's four mechs on board, two of them fighting, two of them cheering them on?  Well, uh...”

“Somebody died.”

“What?”

“Somebody DIED.”

“...You're sure about that?”

One of Quake's eyes opened.  “He went _splat._ ”

“Oh. Well.  Uh...”

“A-a-and they're still cheering them on.”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“C'mon, go go go--”

“Go, get 'em! Kill 'em!”

“NO! Aw, scrap.”

“Bo-yah! I rock and roll!”

“...Let's go again.”

“What?!”

“Let's go again, Hot Rod.”

“You're on!”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Talon stepped closer to Quake.  “You're absolutely sure about that?”

“T-T-Talon, they're torturing somebody!”

“Might be that yellow Autobot from before.  Maybe he was being controlled.  Or maybe they figured out he was a double agent.  Or--”

Quake pulled back from the cargo ship, his hands now shaking violently, his optics huge.

“The real c-crew's there and they d-d-don't need us, right?”

“Right, right.  Let's get out of here.”

Turning away, they left the cargo ship behind, their pace quick, though they tried not to show how concerned they were about putting as much distance between them and the apparent rival Decepticons.  The flashes of light seen through the bridge window continued, ending in a swirl of color and a burst of white light.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“I win again!”

Sunstreaker growled.  “You're cheating somehow.”

“Nope!”  Hot Rod sent him a slag-eating grin.  “You just suck at this game.”

“...One more round.”

“One more round!” the youngling repeated gleefully, his cursor selecting the same character again.  Sunstreaker, though, hesitated as he spent a moment studying the available characters and their stats.  His cursor swung back and forth, considering his options, and when Hot Rod started making inpatient noises and squirming around in his seat on the floor, he finally made his decision, choosing a warrior who was slow but had thick, double-plated armor.

The hologram flashed, and the two characters faced off against one another, briefly posing towards the players before adopting defensive stances.  

_”Ready!  Fight!”_

The controllers rattled and clicked as the Autobot and the youngling threw in commands furiously, their characters on screen punching, kicking and flailing at one another.  Hot Rod kicked his legs out spastically, shouting encouragement at his character, while Sunstreaker bent over in his chair, his controller held tightly in his lap, muttering to himself nearly as often as Hot Rod yelled at the screen.

“C'mon, c'mon, c'mon...”

“Watch out, here I come! WHOO!”

Hot Rod's character managed to get a few punches in, but Sunstreaker's easily absorbed the blow.  He was pushed back, the character retreating across the screen, forced to keep moving under a barrage of high-kicks.

“Augh, get off of me, you little fragger--”

“Kick! Kick!”

His back pressed against the wall, Sunstreaker's character crossed his forearms in front of his face, absorbing a special attack from Hot Rod. Just as it ended, a hand snapped out and snatched at Hot Rod's character's ankle, and whipped him into the air.

“HEY!”

Hot Rod mashed his controller frantically, but the character was trapped.  As if he were holding a club, Sunstreaker's character bashed him into the floor, halving his life points, then finished him off by stomping on him, sending gears and fluids splattering across the ground.  The sight made even Sunstreaker wince in sympathy for the imaginary mech, but only for a moment.  As his character threw up his fists triumphantly, so did he.

“WHOO!! And that's how it's done!”

“You cheated!” Hot Rod cried.  “You've lost every match so far!”

Sunstreaker smirked at him and spread his arms.  “I was getting used to the controls and how best to fight you--”

“Liar! You got lucky!”

“Kid, I could have wiped the floor with any of these so-called warriors if they were real! I was just figuring out the controller.”

“Bet you won't win again.”

“Bet I will.”

Returning their attention to the screen, they both chose the same character again immediately.  This time Sunstreaker's grin stayed transfixed, now that he understood how the game mechanics worked.

_”Ready!  Fight!”_

The bridge room was filled with clicking and rattling from the two controllers once again.  Hot Rod made empathetic pained noises as his character tried again and again to break through Sunstreaker's defenses, but the Autobot refused to let his own character open himself to a special attack.

“C'mon, are you playing or not?”

“You mean like this?”

“AUGH! NO!”

The warrior grabbed Hot Rod's character by the ankle again, and used the exact same move to defeat him.  The youngling roared in outrage, flailing around for a moment before whipping around to face Sunstreaker's chair.

“Stop doing that! It's not fair!”

“I'm winning. It's fair.”

“Yeah, but I'm the youngling! _I'm_ supposed to win!”

Sunstreaker barked a laugh.  “Oh, really?”  

“Yes!! Don't you know anything about playing with younglings?!”

“Not a fragging thing.  Sorry kid, winning is what I do best.”

“I bet I could beat you even without the game!”

“What?”

Hot Rod thrust his controller aside. “I can take you! You got used to seeing how the warriors fought.  Well I've seen you fight!  I can take you!”

Sunstreaker considered the youngling's challenge, flabbergasted, before leaning back in the commander's chair as he folded his arms across his chestplate.  “I doubt you could get me to leave my seat.”

An orange blur flew at him.  He waited until Hot Rod was only steps away before raising his hands defensively and parrying away each punch thrown at him, his movements as fluid and practiced as if they'd been choreographed.

He quietly congratulated himself on his own discipline and skills.  He could have easily swiped the smaller mech aside and knocked him away, or worse, accidentally harmed him.  But the art of war was something that Sunstreaker had long since mastered, and he knew how to hold back as much as how to unleash. Each punch was caught with a palm, each swipe was carefully deflected, each kick was parried with his shin or ankle, all without leaving the comfort of his commander's chair.

Honestly, he was having fun.  

Hot Rod, though, was now twice as enraged.  Copying one of the battle cries he'd heard on the game chip, he tried several moves that a character could have used in a special attack, but in reality they were ridiculous and easily deflected or parried.

“You know--” Sunstreaker drew his head back to dodge an upper cut, “I really aught to teach you--” he leaned to the side as a jab flew past his headfin, “how to fight sometime.  You can't use a rifle forever.”

Hot Rod growled and tried to stomp on his foot, which Sunstreaker easily moved aside, even teasing the youngling briefly by wiggling his ped back and forth until he kicked at him in frustration.  “When I do...URF!!...the first thing I'm gonna do is beat you up!”

Stepping back, he attempted the mimic the kick that his preferred character used.  But just like in the game, Sunstreaker leaned forward and caught his ankle before his foot could cause any damage.

“Gotcha.”  He smiled at him dangerously.

Hot Rod froze, imagining the Autobot doing the same thing to him that the game characters had done, and his fears were doubled as Sunstreaker yanked on his leg.  But instead of falling to the ground, he was caught, upside-down and unharmed, his legs dangling in the air.  He stared at the floor in a dazed confusion before snarling and kicking at empty space.

“Put me down! Sunstreaker! Put me—AH, NO, AHAHA!”

Sunstreaker's grin grew further as he found a seam on Hot Rod's side and wiggled his fingers.  “Don't know anything about playing with a youngling, do I?”

“STOP! HEHEHE!”  Hot Rod giggled madly, trying and failing to push the Autobot's hands away from the seams, even at the risk of Sunstreaker dropping him.  “That's not fair! LET GO!”

“Not until you say that I won.”

“NO!”

“Then I've got no reason to stop.”

“You're a cheater, and—HEHEHE!”

“I can keep this up for cycles.”

“ _I'M_ the best, not you!  WHOA!”  He was flipped right-side up, seated next to Sunstreaker in the chair, though the Autobot kept him pinned.  “Give up?!”

“Nah.  I don't want you puking energon on the floor.  Again.”

He snorted, then tried to squirm up, but a firm grip was held on him.  “...Let me up?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm not through with you yet.”

The youngling shrieked and giggled all over again as the seam was tickled, the game chip completely forgotten as he curled up into a ball at Sunstreaker's side, two sets of laughter echoing through the bridge and the rest of the ship.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“Wouldn't it be funny if he had gotten on the wrong ship?”

Quake snorted into his energon. He was already having enough trouble with not spilling his drink.  “W-w-w-walked right onto the bridge a-a-a-and up to the crew.”

“Too bad they didn't invite us.”  Talon's claws gripped his own energon cube, and he leaned back lazily as he observed the half-empty bar around him.  There were other Cybertronians, some Decepticon, most Neutral, but they were the alien species on this asteroid, and kept to their own groups. Most conversations were muted, besides a youthful bunch of Tragglians in the back corner.  “It must have been fun, if it took the whole crew to interrogate him.”  He ran the tip of one of his claws over the back of his other hand.  “I could have helped.”

“H-h-how many mechs should be on t-t-there?”

“Twenty-four? Twenty-five? Why?”

Quake's cube rattled as he put his drink down on the table. His fingers clacked on the polished surface as he placed his palm down too.  The noise suddenly stopped as he froze, his optics going dark as he concentrated.

Talon let his friend work, instead taking another look around the bar.  Several chairs down, a bearded Qualak looked at Quake, then at Talon, and when Talon didn't answer his questioning stare, he shrugged and returned to his drink, bright blue fluid dribbling down all over his beard.

“There's few v-v-v-vibrations now.”

Talon glanced back at Quake, who had not yet onlined his optics again.  “What kind of vibrations?” he whispered.

“Typing.  Systems r-r-r-running.  One in recharge. One at a console.”  His eyeridges furrowed.  “One and one.  One and one. One and one.  That's two.  Only two.”

“There's gotta be more than two mechs on the ship.”  Talon's optics widened marginally.  

“If there are, they're d-d-d-dead.  Only two are vibrating.”

“So it's either the Autobot and one other mech, or they already killed the Autobot and the crew of two are resting. C'mon, Quake.  That makes no sense.”

Quake lifted his hands and a red glow returned to his optics. When he spoke again, his twitching had returned.  “I t-t-told you what I sensed.  If you d-don't b-b-believe me, why don't you go and a-a-ask them?”

“Mech, I have half a mind to do that.”  He swirled his drink around in his cube as he thought.  “...A crew of two, in a cargo ship meant for twenty-six mechs. They're not in distress, and they've got an Autobot ordering parts for repair.”

“We s-s-should call it in.”

“Or we can handle this ourselves, and have a hardy cargo ship in the end. Quake, you've seen the slag that goes in and out of this port.  We could get a slice of it. We could come out of this war with a profit we don't have to share with any other Decepticons.  And all we need to do is to take down a couple of mechs.”

Quake's optic twitched spastically as he considered the grin on his friend's face.  “A c-c-ouple of mechs on a ship that they p-p-probably won't leave.  I don't know, T-T-Talon.”

“It's just two mechs.  If they're Autobots, great, we're heroes.  If they're Decepticons, well, sucks for them.”

“We attack them on Drega-3, and s-s-security will have our a-a-afts, and w-w-worse if those really are Decepticons on b-b-board.”

“That's why it pays to have more friends than you.”  Talon winked at Quake's sputtering, then left him at the bar, instead walking over to a table of other Decepticons and raising his hand in greeting.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

One of Sunstreaker's hands tapped away on the console in front of him, extending a map of the star system on the screen.  The other stayed on the orange youngling, holding him far more gently than when he'd been wrestling with him before.  Hot Rod was already deep in recharge, his helm nudged between the Autobot's arm and golden chestplate. 

Sunstreaker was starting to learn that if he successfully wore out Hot Rod, he'd have plenty of time to work uninterrupted while the youngling dozed.  

However, his attention was focused on the console.  A few more taps and the field of view expanded even further. Certain stars and planets were circled, indicating Decepticon activity stored in the ship's logs.  It wasn't much to go by, but if he knew his brother, Sideswipe would be headed towards the bulk of the fighting, if not engaged in a similar search for his brother.  If he'd been with a unit, and not aboard a commandeered enemy cargo ship and guarding a youngling, Sunstreaker would have done the same.

“Where are you?” he muttered at the screen.

His spark told him nothing, other than that Sideswipe was still alive, somewhere.  Their twin sparks could share feelings, ideas, thoughts, and if they focused hard enough, words. Sometimes it went deeper than even that. In battle, the two of them could move as if they were a single entity, without saying a word to one another, drawing awe from their allies and terror from their foes.  But right now, his brother's spark was too far away to say more than that it still existed.

The bond between the twins called to one another, demanding that they be at each other's sides, for anything else was terribly unnatural. He knew, wherever he was, Sideswipe was just as desperate to find him.  His own spark thrummed against his chestplate in a sharp urge to be near his twin.

Hot Rod shifted, suddenly uncomfortable.

Sunstreaker wrapped his arm a little tighter around him.  “Easy, kid.”  His voice seemed to soothe the youngling, who drifted back into recharge.  The Autobot stared at him a moment, then refocused his attention on the screen.

Despite the danger to Hot Rod, he had to get closer to the front line if he wanted any chance of tracking down Sideswipe.  Unless something drastic had happened to their home, he wouldn't be on Cybertron.  Their planet, though technically occupied by Decepticons, was dead, and not worth fighting over any longer. Neither were the moons, or the nearby star systems.  The fights would have moved onto substantial energon wells. He and Hot Rod had already knocked out a major mining operation several megacycles ago.  There had been plenty of energon there to supply an entire contingent, and it worried him that he'd been the first to attack it.

The guerrilla tactics he'd been using as he'd come across Decepticon operations had to be helping the Autobot cause. But from what he'd seen at the mine, he'd gotten the idea that he was skirting around the edge of some greater plan...

An alarm chimed on the console.  Sunstreaker stiffened, his hand automatically tightening its grip on Hot Rod, before he swiped away the star maps and brought up the cameras watching the exterior of the ship.

“Scrap,” he hissed to himself, recognizing the Neutral merchant standing outside the airlock.  The chime sounded again, shrill and audio-aching. With only a brief wonder as to why Hot Rod had woken up for seemingly nothing and then continued sleeping through the console noises, he stood up, letting the youngling slide over the rest of the chair, its arm pillowing his head.  He made sure that the younger mech was still in recharge before heading off the bridge.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“Hello again, friend!”

“You do deliveries too?”  Sunstreaker looked skeptically at the boxes stacked up on a hover-sled, filled with the ship parts that he'd ordered from another dealer.  

“Whatever I need to do to make a few credits around here.  And speaking of--?”  He extended his hand, and grinned as the Autobot paid him.  “Nice doing business with you.”

Sunstreaker grunted, then stepped forward to take the handlebar of the sled.  The Neutral turned and put a foot on it, stopping him.

“Don't trouble yourself; I'd be happy to load them on board for you.”

“No, thank you.”

He jerked the sled forward, and the Neutral hopped back, yet he kept following Sunstreaker back to the airlock of the cargo ship.

“So how's your friend liking his game chips?”

“I told you, I'm alone.”

“Aw, don't be like that.  A mech such as yourself has no time for games, right?  But you must be a good friend to be--”

Sunstreaker slammed a hand against the airlock's door frame, stopping the Neutral's progress into the ship.  Blue optics narrowed at him.

“You want a tip, _friend?_ ”

“...Sure?”

“Frag off.”

The Neutral raised his hands placatingly and stepped back.  “Alright, alright.  My fault for being helpful and affable.”

The Autobot tossed one more credit his way.  “This is for the sled.”  With that, he slapped a palm over the airlock controls, slamming the door behind him.

“Thank you... _friend._ ”  Turning away from the cargo ship, the Neutral headed back the way he'd come, smiling to himself and added Sunstreaker's payment to the credits already in his subspace pocket.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The cargo ship lifted away from the port less than a cycle later.  It was unharrassed as it breezed by other ships with less than friendly intentions to Cybertronians, whether they were part of a faction or not.  As it left the protected space around Drega-3, it immediately accelerated, flying away to the stars before any of the other ships could change their minds about raising the asteroid's ire.  

Another cycle passed before a second Decepticon ship, this one a warship, lifted out of port and turned to the same heading as the cargo ship.

More time passed, each ship reaching a velocity to travel between solar systems.  The second ship never outpaced the first, and quietly stayed out of sensor range.

Meanwhile, inside the cargo ship, within it's hold, in one of the boxes that Sunstreaker had brought aboard, a red light briefly glowed, then faded.

Glowed, then faded.

Glowed, then faded.

Exactly one deca-cycle after the hover-sled had been passed to Sunstreaker, the light suddenly picked up it's tempo. 

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“Grr...How do you beat this guy?”

Sunstreaker looked up from where he was shuffling his card stack. In his own chair, Hot Rod pouted as he considered the screen in front of him.  The Autobot had reconfigured the console the youngling habitually sat at to be able to play game chips alone, so that it wouldn't interrupt the main screen each time that the youngling got bored and wanted to play.  He couldn't see what character Hot Rod had chosen this time, but he did see the winner.  The double-plated warrior that Sunstreaker liked sneered across the screen at him and made a rude gesture with one hand.

“Practicing?”

“And getting better. Wanna play?”

The Autobot shook his head.  “I need to keep an optic on the sensor net.”

“But you've got your cards out!” Hot Rod protested.

“That's just to occupy my hands.”  He would have preferred a drawing pad instead, but he had yet to find decent material for more than a scribble.  “I thought you loved that game.  You have it loaded up all the time.”

“But it's no fun to play alone.”  The screen switched off, and a moment later Hot Rod padded up to the side of the commander's chair.  “Can you show me what you're doing with the cards?”

Sunstreaker shrugged.  “Just shuffling them.”  He demonstrated, the cards' worn ends clicking together as he did. 

“How do you do that?”

“Hot Rod, go play with something.”

“I want to play with those.”

“Go play with one of the things I went into port and _bought specifically for you._ ”

“But you need to play with me!”

“I don't _need_ to play anything.”

The youngling made a face, then stomped back to his own chair.  As he climbed into his seat, he tried one more plead.  “What about _Mighty Mechanics_?  You like that game too, right?”

He honestly did; the creative building game had caught his optic long before he had met Hot Rod.  The objective in most game chips was fighting and destruction; _Mighty Mechanics_ had players build their own world in any fashion that they wished.  It taunted the interest of the more creative part of his spark, though it was clearly aimed towards younglings.

The console beeped in front of him, and he put the cards aside long enough to input a command before the sensors swept another grid in the space around the ship.

“I'm working.”

The finality in his voice quieted Hot Rod, at least for now.  With a few grumbled words, the youngling switched the game chip in the console, and loaded up _Mighty Mechanics_ instead.  The lighter, charming sounds of the game tinkled through the bridge, Hot Rod's character running around a hill and shaping it with cartoonish grunts and smacks, overlaid by the clicking of Sunstreaker shuffling his cards, restacking them, then shuffling them again.

The console beeped for attention.  A vessel was detected within sensor range briefly before its heading changed and it vanished.  Sunstreaker pulled up the star map, and kept watch on its location, before passing it off as just another ship floating through the night.  The sensor sweep finished, and he moved onto the next one.

There were fewer sounds from the game.  Feeling optics on him, Sunstreaker glanced up.

Hot Rod had turned around in his seat and was glowering at him.  Behind him on the screen, a pixalated hilltop agreed with the youngling, also staring at Sunstreaker with an exaggerated unhappy face made of grassy mounds, the character standing on top of it with his arms crossed.

The Autobot refreshed his optics.  “...You are something,” he said slowly, one corner of his mouth turning up.  “I don't know what, but something.”

Hot Rod continued to pout at him.

“Alright, alright.”  Venting a sigh, he put the cards aside and pulled himself up from his chair.  “I'll play.”

The youngling's face lit up happily.  Sunstreaker stepped down from his tier towards him, and as he picked up his own controller and looked for the port to plug it in, the floor lurched with a terrifying roar and sent him flying to the left.  Hot Rod tumbled out of his seat, and the Autobot grabbed for him before he could roll too far away.

The game instantly shut off as alarms blared all through the ship.

“What's going on?!” Hot Rod shouted above the noise.

“Hull breach!” Sunstreaker found himself answering before his cortex could fully process what was happening.  One arm stayed tightly around Hot Rod, a palm on the youngling's helm in case they were thrown again, the other balancing himself on the floor as the ship trembled.  “Can't be another ship.  Can't be.  I checked...”

The autopilot agreed, and automatically pulled a map of the empty sensor grid as it searched for the enemy.  Then the image flashed, disintegrated, and was replaced by a more general map of the nearby star clusters and a planet that they were passing by.

“The sensor grid is knocked out too?!”

The Autobot turned his head towards the windows, trying to get a visual on any ship that was attacking them.  The absolute darkness of space could easily hide a vessel until it was nearly on top of them; he couldn't confirm if there really was another ship out there or not.  With a swear, he hurried back to the commander's console, Hot Rod gripped tightly to his side.

“...Whatever that was, it's also knocked out the weapons systems.  Frag!”

Hot Rod gasped as he was pushed into the chair and it's belt was strapped across his lap.  With both hands now free, Sunstreaker rapidly typed in commands, and the ship began to turn towards the planet it had been passing.

“What are you doing?” Hot Rod struggled with the belt, wanting to help in some way.

“Landing. Without a sensor grid or weapons, we're an easy target out here.”  He looked over his shoulder to see the youngling trying to get up.  “Stay where you are! The breach somehow knocked out two systems; I don't know what might fail next!"

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“W-w-what if they accelerated?”

“With a hole in their ship?  I doubt it. No, they must be hiding somewhere.”

It had been half a cycle since the timed device hidden in the cargo ship's hold had gone off.  Talon narrowed his optics as he glanced between the windows and the sensor net.  

A voice called out from the back of the room.

“If you mechs have dragged us off Drega-3 for nothing--”

“There!”

Quake was pointing a shaking finger at a planet on the star map.

“It's the o-o-only feasible place they'd g-g-g-g-go.”

“Then that's where we're headed.”  As he changed the ship's course, Talon grinned over his shoulder.  “And you doubted me?”

The five other Decepticons, all heavily armed, scowled back at him.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Sunstreaker cocked his head to the side as he inspected the damaged wiring inside of the ship's plating.  “How in the Pits did it only damage these...?”

The star that the planet orbited provided him with plenty of light to work by, but the end of its day was nearing.  The Autobot worked as quickly as he could, not wanting to be stranded on the planet for very long.  Granted, it didn't seem particularly dangerous. Its atmosphere was stable, and they'd happened to land in a place where the flora was rich and thriving, the trees reaching high into the skies, the grasses and bushes ruffling around their knees.  It reminded him of the planet where he'd found Hot Rod.

The youngling must have noticed this too, because as soon as the airlock doors were open, he'd taken off into the woods and vanished, despite Sunstreaker's shouts for him not to go too far.

Hot Rod had been on a mudball planet.  They were currently on a mudball planet.  With his luck, Sideswipe was on a mudball planet too.

In the meantime, the Autobot warrior tried to piece together what had happened as he repaired as much as he could.  A new, giant hole in the wall gave him a convenient doorway in and out of the ship, not that he appreciated it.  He'd found evidence of an explosion from inside one of the boxes from Drega-3.  Some kind of faulty equipment, or worse, maybe one of the Decepticons in the port had noticed him and dropped a nasty surprise into his order.  The plating would be easy enough to repair; the vessel was no warship, but it could take a beating, especially around its hold.

What concerned him was how and why the explosion had knocked out the sensor net and weapons systems.  He'd found essential wiring for both systems fried near where the plating was damaged.  Other wires had fritzed, but those two had been especially cooked.  It would take at least an orn for him to replace them and get its sensor grid and weapons back.

He took a frayed bit of wire and checked it more closely.

“...An EMP?”  he muttered to himself. “No.  That would have hit all the systems, and the ship would be dead and useless--”

A crack, a flash, and a wave of thick smoke washed over him.  Sunstreaker instantly dropped to one knee, one hand converting to a blaster, the other snatching out his knife as he positioned himself towards where the smoke had come from.  It was quickly filling the hold, making it nearly impossible to see further than the reach of his hand. Sneering, he stalked forward, ready to confront the intruder.

“Sunstreaker, it's me!”

“....” The blaster lowered and fizzled out as Sunstreaker transformed it back into a hand.

The youngling's fans kicked on to keep the smoke out of his systems, and the space around him began to clear.  Steps away from Sunstreaker, he grinned at him, and held up several tree nuts that were about a third of the size of his fist.

“That was one of these things! Look, when they drop to the ground, they work like a smoke grenade. Must be how it spreads its seeds. Scared me when one of them fell out of a branch, but--”

“Really?”

Hot Rod shut his vocalizer as the Autobot stepped closer to him, his shoulders hunched, his expression furious.  The youngling clutched the tree nuts tightly.

“I just wanted to show you--”

“We've made an emergency landing on an unexplored planet, we've got no sensor grids or onboard weapons, I'm trying to get this repaired, and you're throwing smoke grenades at me? _Really?!_ ”

“...Well I think they're useful.”

Sunstreaker raised a finger as he prepared for an audio-splitting lecture, then paused, his mouth open comically and a hand in the air.  

They _would_ be a useful tool for their arsenal.

He tried again, this time because Hot Rod had snuck up and startled him while he was doing vital repairs.

As if reading his mind, Hot Rod lifted his head and raised his voice.  “And maybe I should start doing patrols around the ship, since obviously you're not paying attention!”

The finger stayed in the air.  Sunstreaker considered it, the youngling, and his pride.

“...For Primus's sake...”  He dropped his hand, then pressed it into his face.  “Just...go outside and do something.”  He parted his fingers long enough to glower at him.  “We _will_ discuss this later.  Just stay out of my way for now.”

“Patrols?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Turning away from Hot Rod, he went back to work, repairing the wiring and checking databoards for damage too.  Hot Rod's lighter feet clapped along the floor as he walked away, leaving through the hole, the remaining smoke dissipating with him into the fresh air outside.  Sunstreaker tried to squash his fury at the situation and the youngling's impudence and concentrate on his task, though it was difficult.

Especially because he still couldn't figure out how two critical systems had been disabled, but the rest left intact.

It was as if whatever had exploded had purposely found the frequency that those systems had operated on--

“Sunstreaker!”

Sunstreaker raised his head.  Hot Rod's voice was urgent this time, his usual humor gone.

Abandoning the repairs, the Autobot hurried out through the hole.  The sky was continuing to darken as night approached, but he could see Hot Rod's orange paint job easily enough. The youngling was pointing one hand towards the top of the trees on the horizon.

Sunstreaker felt his energon run cold.

“...Frag.”

Haloed by the planet's sunset, a gray Decepticon warship was gliding towards them.

Hot Rod let out a startled squeak as Sunstreaker grabbed him and pulled him back into the ship.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“There it is.”

Talon gave Quake a toothy grin, his claws tapping on the console excited.  

“And all but a hole in the hull!”

“A-a-a-and, if my device worked right, the s-s-sensors and weapons are d-d-d-down, but I can fix those in an orn.”

“Brilliant work, my mech.  Just brilliant.”

The other Decepticons had gathered around the front window as well, observing the purplish-gray cargo ship that had made an emergency landing in the woods.  Despite clipping the top of the trees on the way down, it was in good shape, aside from the damage that Quake's explosive had caused.  One of the hired Decepticons grunted as he hefted a shotgun across his shoulders.

“Only two mechs, you said?”

“Yep.  And if our intel is right, one of them is either injured, or cortex-fragged.  Easy pickings.”

The warship shuttered as the retro-jets activated, letting it hover before setting it down gently in a clearing directly in front of the cargo ship.  Normally it would be madness to land directly in front of another's cannons, but the cargo ship's weaponry made no attempt to target the other vessel, let alone fire.  

“If they know what's good for them, they'll run and leave us with the ship.”

Another one of the hired mechs perked up.  “And where does that leave us?!”

“You'll still get your credits.  You're here in case they're stupid enough to resist.”

“Attacking fellow 'Cons,” another muttered, broad-shouldered and carrying an axe.  “This doesn't sit well with me.  Let's get this over with before they get a chance to put out a distress signal.”

Readying their weapons, Talon, Quake and the five hired mechs headed for the airlock, and stepped out of the ship.  Twilight had come; the sky was wrapped in a violet glow, and the retreating sun stretched their fading shadows out in front of them, towards the waiting cargo ship.  The other vessel sat cold and quiet.

As the group marched forward, their weapons aimed at the forward airlock, Talon shouted towards it.  “Anyone who wants to live should disembark now! Once we board, we won't be taking prisoners!  Come out, and you'll live another orn!”

There was no answer.

“M-m-maybe they're already gone,” Quake suggested, his own blaster rattling badly.

“Maybe.  Keep going. We're taking no chanc—GAH!!”

Talon leapt aside, but the Decepticon behind him was not quick enough to dodge the shot.  He was hit solidly in the chest, and stumbled back before a second shot downed him for good.

“Where--?!”

“The hole in the cargo hold!”

The golden mech appeared again, firing rapidly before ducking back from the retaliating shots. The Decepticons hit the ground and answered him, peppering the outline of the hole and keeping the mech inside pinned down.  

“Keep an optic out for the other one!” Talon shouted, naturally taking the lead.  Grabbing Quake's shoulder, he thrust him to the right.  “Take a mech and circle around.  We'll hit them from both sides.”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Laser fire pounded the walls, but Sunstreaker ignored it as he scooped an energon cube into the pack on Hot Rod's back.  The youngling nervously swung his head back and forth, expecting the Decepticons to rush in at any moment from a door on either side, but otherwise held still as the Autobot frantically loaded his pack with supplies that wouldn't fit into his subspace pocket.

“Head out the back, straight into the woods,” Sunstreaker was instructing him as he closed and locked the pack.  “Hide yourself until this is over. I'll come for you when it's safe.”

“I'm not leaving you behind!” Hot Rod protested, his optics huge.  “Either come with me, or I'll stay with you, but I'm not leaving you for--”

Something exploded outside, shaking the whole ship.  Both mechs dropped to their knees, Sunstreaker putting his arms around Hot Rod to protect him from any debris, but the ship stayed solidly intact.

“I'm not giving you a choice,” he hissed.  “I can't defend an entire ship and guard you at the same time.  That's too much ground for me to cover.  You need to go, _now_ , before we're surrounded.  Got your knife?”

“Yes, but my rifle's still upstairs.”

Voices were shouting from two directions now.  Sunstreaker swore.

“We're out of time. Go, now!”

“But--”

“GO!”

The youngling stumbled as he was shoved towards the rear airlock.  Sunstreaker turned away from him, stalking towards the hole in the hull, thrusting down one arm as it transformed into a blaster. His dentals grit together as he prepared for the enemy to attempt to storm in.  Before he could reach it, footsteps clapped behind him, and a pair of orange arms squeezed around his torso, halting his progress.

He froze, perplexed first by the gesture, then by the youngling's timing.  The shouting grew closer, yet Hot Rod didn't move.

“...I'll be fine,” Sunstreaker murmured.  One hand reached back and rubbed the top of the youngling's head.  Hot Rod's forehead pressed into his back.

“I'm scared.”

“No you're not.  You're the bravest mech I know.”

He reached down and pried the youngling's hands off of him.

“Now go!”

This time Hot Rod obeyed and sprinted for the rear airlock.  And just in time.  A face appeared in the hole, then ducked, barely dodging the Autobot's shot.

“One's headed out the back!”

The warning was carried by the other voices.  Sunstreaker couldn't spare to check Hot Rod's progress as the rear airlock hissed open.  Instead he ran towards the hole, shocking the mech hiding on the outside of the wall, and lunged at him, letting his knife carry his momentum as he crashed into him.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Blaster fire exploded in the grass behind Hot Rod's feet as he ran.  The youngling was lighter and more agile than most grown mechs, and weaved through the bushes, diving and rolling, scrambling under a log and clawing his way across the ground until he could sprint again.  He nearly tumbled into a pit that seemd to yawn open from out of nowhere, and he managed to instead skirt around it.  At least two mechs were pursuing him, though he was quickly losing them.

“Red...orange?...A mini?...Frag, I lost sight of him!”

“Let him go! He won't be back.  Hey, watch out for the pit!”

His hands squeezed into fists, wanting to turn around and prove the Decepticons wrong, but he kept running.  Roots threatened to trip him, and he had shove vines and low-lying branches out of his way, praying that they wouldn't mark his progress as they snapped back.  The sounds of pursuit ended, but the battle at the cargo ship didn't.

Only when he was certain that there was no one following him did Hot Rod allow himself time to find a climbable tree.  He hoisted himself up, small hands gripping at the bark and knolls, the treads of his feet digging into the trunk, making sure that he had a good grip before pulling himself up further.  It had been a while since he'd been able to properly climb a tree.  On the planet that he'd been stranded there had been no one to stop him from scaling any tree he wanted, as high as he wanted, but once he'd met Sunstreaker, the mech had fretted whenever he got high enough that a fall would cause serious damage.  That was stupid.  He never fell.

...Never fell and let Sunstreaker know about it, anyway.

As he reached the top, and the branches became lighter and weaker, Hot Rod stopped and clung to the trunk.  His foot poked at branches, testing them, until he found one that could bear his weight and stood on it.  From here he had a good view of the two ships, and how the battle was going.

It wasn't going.  The sounds of blaster fire had stopped.

The youngling narrowed his optics as he tried to distinguish individual mechs and figure out what was going on.  The sun had vanished into not more than a red line on the horizon, and the failing light made it difficult to see.  One mech had been killed early on and lay spread-eagled on his back partway between the two vessels.  Another was slumped against the cargo ship, outside of the hole.  He could make out the glistening of energon around his chest.  There was no movement on the ground otherwise.

Something crashed and splattered on the muddy ground, startling him.  A moment later a mech ran back to the warship, and shortly after that it's exterior lighting flashed on, illuminating the clearing.

Sunstreaker's golden armor brilliantly reflected the light.  Hot Rod felt his spark squeeze tightly in his chest.

“No...”

The Autobot was being dragged out of the cargo ship by two Decepticons, each one grasping one of his wrists.  His head was bowed forward, and he didn't resist as his legs and torso were pulled across the grass and dirt.  As they passed under one of the lights, Hot Rod could see a ugly scorch mark on his back, energon leaking from several tears around it.

Two more Decepticons followed them, one limping as they went.  They entered the warship with their prisoner, and then all was quiet again.

Hot Rod lowered himself to sit on the branch, a shaking hand clutching the trunk to keep himself steady.

“No.  No, no no no.  This isn't happening,” he mumbled to himself. “Sunstreaker never loses...”

The pack suddenly felt heavier on his back.  

Sunstreaker had known that he wasn't going to win.

Grabbing the trunk with both hands now, the youngling began to climb down, his mind still trying to comprehend what he'd seen.

Sunstreaker was captured.  Or dead. Would Decepticons take a dead mech back to their ship?  What would they do with him?

He tried to push that line of thought out of his mind, though it was replaced by something equally terrifying.

They'd seen him.  They'd come for him next.

What could he do? Hide? How long would they search before they found him, or gave up and left him stranded?

“...Sunstreaker would fight.”  He grimaced as he nearly lost his footing, and hung on before he could steady himself again, only now realizing how badly he was shaking.  

But how could he fight? He was smaller than any of the Decepticons, and his rifle was still on the ship. Sneaking aboard for it would be impossible; they'd see him crossing the clearing before he got halfway there.  Getting on the warship was equally insane; unlike the cargo ship, its defensive weaponry were working just fine.

It was like fighting the mech in _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ all over again.  He was outsized, outclassed, and had no idea how he could win.  And this time, if he was caught, there wasn't a way to start the game over.

His foot snared on a vine.  He tried to kick it away, then hissed as it refused to give.  He kicked harder, and it tore away, dangling at the end of a light, quivering branch, like the tail of a snake. 

Hot Rod stopped and stared at it.  After a hesitation, he reached forward, broke off the branch, then carefully wound the other end of the vine on the other end of the branch.

An idea formed in his mind.  Slinging the impromptu bow over his shoulder, and pulling his knife out of subspace, he climbed back up the tree, looking for other thin branches and twigs that he could shape, and bigger leaves to cover the pit.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The list of warnings on Sunstreaker's HUD were making his cranium ache long before he onlined his optics. His back felt like it was still on fire.  The last thing he remembered was wrestling with a Decepticon that had gotten into the cargo hold, and managing to plunge his knife into something vital before a blast of energy had slammed into his back.

“...mech ran into the woods.  I think it was a minicon.”

The angle of his shoulders and arms made the injury even worse.  But when he tried to move, something burned at his wrists.  He groaned and turned his head to the side, eyeing the glowing restraint keeping his hand close to the side of his head.  His other hand was in a similar predicament.

His knife could easily cut through these.  But that was in his subspace pocket by his hip. 

“He's online.”

Sunstreaker turned back to a pair of glowing red optics hovering over him. The brilliant overhead lights beyond the other mech bathed his front in shadow, and made the rest of the room difficult to see. The Autobot realized that he was strapped to a table, probably in the warship's brig, and was surrounded by at least five Decepticons, all heavily armed.

Great.  This wasn't going to be easy.

A clawed hand gripped one of his headfins painfully, keeping him from looking further around the room as he tried to determine who he'd attack first as soon as he got out of the restraints.

“What's your designation, Autobot?”

“Your Carrier.” Sunstreaker smirked, then winced as his head was thrown back and bounced on the table.  His optics had to refresh several times before images better than bursts of light returned to him.

“You've already lost, Autobot.  Before I offline you, I want to know how you got one of our cargo ships, who you were with, and where you were going.  If you're a good mech and answer me now, I'll make sure you die quickly, and painlessly.  If not...”

A clawed hand was raised in front of Sunstreaker's face, and then with a shriek of metal, the claws extended to the length of the mech's forearm, making the hardened Autobot warrior widen his optics.

“I will enjoy taking you apart, shred by shred.  Should we begin with an easier question?”

The tips of his claws tapped underneath Sunstreaker's chin, raising his head and exposing his throat.

“Was your partner an Autobot, or a Decepticon?  Who was he?”

“There was nobody on the ship but me,” Sunstreaker hissed, trying to keep his head stiff and not show how much he'd rather the claws not get close to vital energon lines.  He gasped as one of the lines was pulled away from his neck and toyed with.

“Liar.  Someone else was aboard with you.  Now tell me, who was it?”

When Sunstreaker didn't answer, the line was pulled tighter, until a new warning popped up in his HUD, detecting a sudden decrease in energon to his cortex.  But before it could be split, another voice spoke up.

“Hey, wait a breem, Talon.  I know this mech.”

Talon paused, then retracted his claws.  “You do?”

“Yeah.  I didn't think it was him, 'cause his kind are all fighting lightyears from here.”

As Talon stepped back, a sixth mech stepped up into Sunstreaker's field of vision.  As soon as he recognized him, the Autobot sneered.

“You.”

“Hello, friend.”  The Neutral's yellow eyes widened in delight.  “I knew it.  I knew I recognized you when I first saw you, _Sunstreaker.”_

“That's not my name.”

“That's right, you were going by a psuedo-name back then, weren't you?  Spin Out, or something like that?”  His smile grew as Sunstreaker's expression changed.  “See what happens when you and your brother make so many enemies, Sunstreaker?  We lost a planet because of you Autobots.  And look at you now.  You're still the same monster that you were all those vorns ago, and now you're out of places to run.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he lied

“Vox, Tarn, Kaon, you don't remember?  Those Decepticon cities that lay in ruins because of you Autobots?”

Talon interrupted. “He has a brother?”

The Neutral lifted his head.  “I'm surprised you haven't heard of them.  Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe. They're twins.”

There was communal intake of air from several of the Decepticons. One of them chuckled.

“...Now I know who he is.”  Recognition dawned on Talon's face.  “Well, call me Prime.  We just happened to bag one of the Autobot twins.”

“You said your mechs chased out a red Autobot?  I'd bet all the credits in my pocket that it's Sideswipe.”

Sunstreaker bit his dentals and tugged at his restraints, but they refused to give.  His spark started to flutter in panic as he thought of the youngling still out in the woods.  However, his struggling was all the Decepticons needed to confirm the identity of his partner.

One of the mechs raised his hand.  “I thought the 'Bot we saw was a minicon.  How can that be his twin?”

“Maybe he got downgraded.  Or maybe your optics are going bad.”

“Sideswipe is just as dangerous as his twin,” the Neutral spoke above them.  “Sunstreaker took down three of your mechs before being caught.”  He paused.  “Though perhaps he's injured, if he ran away.”

One of the two remaining hired Decepticons raised his axe onto his shoulders, the blade glowing as it powered on.  “Yeah, and now he doesn't have a ship to cower in.  We'll bring him back.”  The other mercenary nodded his head in agreement, and punched a fist into his palm, the clash of metal reverberating through the brig.  

“I-I-I'll go with them,” a thinner, smaller mech stuttered.  “I can help track Sideswipe if he's g-g-gone into hiding.”

“Be careful, Quake.  If he offlines you, I get the whole cargo ship to myself.”

“H-h-ha.”

Three sets of heavy feet stalked out of the brig, an airlock opening somewhere further down the hall.  Sunstreaker fought harder, trying to find some fault in the restraints, ignoring the pain behind his shoulders and the HUD warnings that he was doing further damage to his injuries, until a heavy hand slammed into his chestplate, causing him to freeze and look up at Talon's sneering face again. 

“In the meantime...”

The other clawed hand dug into the seam between his golden armor plating, and he involuntarily spasmed.

“Let's see if we can't summon your twin back to you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The broad leaves wouldn't hold together for very long, but Hot Rod needed them to stay in place for only a few breems.  The lack of light would make the trap harder to spot as well, though he would have to recall exactly where it lay if he didn't want to fall in too.

This could be for nothing, for all he knew.  The Decepticons could take off at any time, leaving him stranded once more on a lonely planet with a broken ship.  And even if it did work, it would only be a temporary set-back for the 'Cons.  They'd surely still leave a mech or two on board, especially if Sunstreaker as their prisoner.  He hadn't yet figured out how to rescue him.  And that was assuming that he was still alive...

Hot Rod shook his head viciously to try to clear it of such thoughts.  He _had_ to still be alive.

He didn't want to comprehend how he would continue on if he wasn't.  

Despite the youngling's insistence that he could take care of himself just fine, as he had been for vorns before Sunstreaker had found him, it...wasn't as lonely with the Autobot guarding him.

Yeah, that was it.  He just didn't want to be alone again.

He'd just finished adjusting the leaves when three sets of headlights began to illuminate the forest to his left. Immediately he went to ground, hiding in the tall grass, backing away through the foliage before he could be seen, the grass parting like water around him before curtaining back to cover his retreat.

“We know that you're out here, Autobot!  Be a good little mech and come out!”

The bushes swayed and crashed as something plowed through them.  Hot Rod ignored a primal urge from his spark screaming at him to run, instead backing up further to one of the trees, and taking cover behind it.  His handmade bow was unslung from his shoulder, and he notched it with one of the arrows that he'd attached to his backpack.  He hadn't had time to make many, and they could do nowhere near the damage as his rifle, but it was the best he could manage if he was forced to fight from a distance, aside from throwing rocks.

The lights and voices grew closer.  “There's no point in hiding!” called another mech.  “We're going to find you, Sideswipe.  Would you like to join your brother now, or with the All Spark?”

Hot Rod paused.  “Sideswipe?” he whispered, bemused.

“You're wasting our time, Sideswipe.  Come on and fight like a mech! Or are you as much of a push-over as Sunstreaker?”

The lights had almost reached the long grass.  Now Hot Rod could make out the outlines of individual mechs and their paint jobs.  One of them was smaller and light blue, someone Sunstreaker would have called punny.  The other two thick and powerfully-built.

The youngling's imagination conjured the image of a pair of Insecticons coming for him, and he would have believed it if it hadn't been for their voices.  He repressed a shudder and tried to keep still.  

“He might be hiding in the trees,” he heard one mech mutter to another.  “If he tries to surprise us, you cut his slagging head off.”

They were almost at the trap, but they were moving off-course.  He would have to take a risk.

He popped up, just long enough to aim, and fired an arrow at one of the Decepticons before diving back down again.  He was rewarded by a burst of static and a cry of pain.

“What's wrong?”  The lights swung around to one of the bigger mechs.

“Something...OW!...Is that a stick in my arm?! How in the Pits...?!”

“Let me see.  Oh, wow.  Frag.”

“OW!!”

“B-b-be quiet! He's here.”

The injured mech hissed, a hand over his deadened arm, and looked left and right.  He gestured a direction with his head.

“Came from over there.”

Hot Rod grimaced, and lowered himself further, until his chest was pressed into the dirt.  If the Cons were looking for Sideswipe, they might not check the grass, where a mech of Sunstreaker's build could not easily hide.  If he slunk forward, and crawled behind the bushes, he could get around them--

An axe slamming into the tree next to him killed that plan.  Debris rained down from the branches on him as the tree started to fall. He squeaked, terrified, and realizing that he'd given away his location, he scrambled up and ran.

“There he is! Get him!”

The woods around him were highlighted with flares of light as gunfire erupted through the trees.  Hot Rod dodged and weaved, dashing behind cover as much as he could, trying to remember where he was going in the dark.  Roots and vines clung to his ankles, threatening to trip him and leave him as an easy target.

“It _is_ a minicon! Don't lose him!”

Three sets of feet stormed after him, crashing through the bushes and sprinting across a clearing.  Wishing that he could transform into something with wheels, or _anything_ at this point, Hot Rod put on a burst of speed, barely staying in front of his pursuers.

His foot stepped on a broad leaf.  He gasped as he halted, windmilled his arms to keep from falling forward, and veered to the right, going around the leaves instead of over them.

“Come here, you...”

Headlights illuminated the orange youngling clearly, his long shadow copying his movements in front of him, and yet he kept running.  The Decepticons, thinking that they could take a shortcut through the leaves, charged after him.

Something snapped, and there were two terrified screams, followed by a crash of earth.  The lights vanished.

Hot Rod didn't stop until he'd reached the far side of the clearing, panting and venting as he climbed over some roots and ducked behind them to check his handiwork from behind cover, his optics huge and disbelieving that his plan had worked. The leaves had fallen into the pit, along with the two biggest mechs and a whole lot of dirt.  From inside he could hear swearing and groans of pain.

“For frag's sake! GET OFF!”

“No, _you_ get off! Ow!”

More dirt and rocks fell into the pit as one of them tried to claw their way out. A particularly large stone rattled off someone's armor with a _clang_ and an angry bellow from the mech.

“...I can't get a grip on the sides!”

The other tried to climb out too, to similar results.

“You slagging _idiot_! You got us trapped in a mud pit by a minicon!”

Hot Rod smirked.  A lighter mech, like himself, would have been able to get a handhold on the side and haul themselves up.  Here, the heavily-armored mechs were at a disadvantage.

If only _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ had pits for him to knock in enemies.

“Wait, wait...I think I got something!”

One of the roots hanging over the edge was grabbed.  It rattled to a mech's grunt, causing more dirt to slide over the edge, and, very briefly, the top of a helm appeared over the side.  The root could not hold his weight, though, and with a _snap,_ the mech went screaming back in, landing with a wheeze of air from his comrade.

“Two down,” Hot Rod muttered, then notched another arrow in his bow as he looked for the third Decepticon, the shorter and skinny one.

He could hear plenty of noise from the pit, but the last 'Con was nowhere in view.  He couldn't see headlights either from the mech searching for him.  Nor could he hear the 'Con attempting to rescue the ones in the pit.

A cold feeling settled over Hot Rod's spark.  Something felt _wrong_.

He stayed low, his glowing blue optics searching the dark woods frantically.  The 'Con had seen him run off.  He could be trying to sprint in front of him and catch him, or he could have headed back to the warship to report that the youngling was definitely not Sideswipe.  Or he could be hiding just as Hot Rod was, waiting for the youngling to double-back towards the ships.

He swore he could feel the ground vibrating underneath his peds.

Ignoring it, he double-checked the arrow. He still had several more left.  At worst, if the 'Con appeared, he could fire one of them and try to disable something, preferably his head.  It wouldn't save him, but it might distract the 'Con long enough for him to come up with a new plan.  He kept his optics on the woods on the far side of the pit, waiting for the other mech to finally emerge.

The vibrating grew stronger.

It occurred to Hot Rod that maybe there was a fourth Decepticon out there.  Maybe one on treads, or a particularly big vehicle mode. That would explain the shaking.

But he couldn't hear or see anything.  All he could feel was the vibrating, getting worse by the second.

He risked standing up to see what was causing the disturbance.

The vibrating stopped.

“...The frag?...”

Slowly, he lowered himself back down behind the roots.  

It could still be a mech with treads.  He doubted that one of the ships had taken off.  What would be the point of leaving their comrades behind?

Maybe stories about Sideswipe were so fearful, the rest of the 'Cons would rather leave the rest of their crew to their doom than to fight.  Which would be a terrible idea, if Sunstreaker's twin was just as determined as his brother.

Something moved behind him.  Before Hot Rod could spin around, the thin mech slammed into him, knocking the bow out of his hand and pinning him against the roots.  Red optics blazed down at him as Hot Rod's arms were twisted painfully behind his back.

“G-g-got you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

He saw a flash, black, a stripe of yellow, then black.

Yellow, black.

Yellow, black.

Yellow, black.

A pair of headlights burned through the night, to one side of the yellow stripes.  

Yellow, black.

Yellow, black.

Yellow, black.

He wasn't noticed.  The vehicle was focused on driving.  

He could barely make out other vehicles on the same side of the yellow stripes, but he paid them no mind.

Sunstreaker recognized those headlights.  That build, that color of red that he kept telling his brother would dull if he didn't wax himself--

He realized he was calling out for his twin.

No.

Screaming.

The headlights twisted, the vehicle changing, still carrying its momentum as Sideswipe rolled through his transformation and skidded to a halt next to the line of yellow stripes marking the asphalt.  Another vehicle nearly slammed into him, skidding away at the last second, horn blaring before it transformed into a Praxian model.  Prowl, maybe Bluestreak.  He didn't care.

Neither did Sideswipe.  His face was raised towards the sky, looking right at Sunstreaker.  

He saw his twin say his name, his optics wide with shock, a hand over the center of his chestplate.

“If that doesn't summon your brother, nothing will.”

The vision ended, and he instead was staring up at the mercilessly blinding light above the table.  He groaned and panted, shocked at how badly his engine was sputtering with each intake.  He must have been leaking more fluids internally than he'd thought.

It hurt to move _everything._

Talon re-entered Sunstreaker's field of vision, shadowing the light above him. One of his energon-stained claws was raised to the Autobot's face.

“We can keep going.  You still haven't told me how you got the cargo ship.”

“Frag...you...”  Even his vocalizer sounded like it was choking.

The Neutral called out from where he was leaning against the wall, his arms crossed as he watched the Decepticon working on the Autobot.  “Keep in mind, Sunstreaker, this is only a taste of the pain of what the rest of Cybertron's population went through because of your war.”

Sunstreaker turned his head towards him.  “ _My_ war?” he croaked.  “You blame me, yet you ally yourself with a Decepticon?!” 

“I support the winning side.”

He hissed, and felt energon surging up his throat.  He cleared it with a hard swallow, then made sure to say each word slowly so that he'd be understood.  “Autobots had a word for mechs like you.   _NAILs._  You're worse than a Neutral.  You're just an advantageous coward.”

“And you're a monster.”

“I'm a warrior.”

“Same difference.”

Talon revved his engine irritably.  “As entertaining as this all is, gentlemechs...I have a prisoner to break.” His claw moved Sunstreaker's head back to him.  “And if he doesn't talk, the first thing I'll do when Quake gets back is tear off one of his brother's limbs.”

Sunstreaker sneered at him.  “Sideswipe's not even in this star quadrant.”

The Decepticon chuckled and flicked some dried energon off of his claws, splattering them on Sunstreaker's mangled armor.  “Come on, is it worth it to lie to me now?”

“I'm not lying.  Sideswipe isn't coming.  So whatever you're going to do, do it,” he spat.  “I'll be one with the All Spark before I--”

The airlock hissed open, and Sunstreaker's vocalizer stuttered off as he heard a familiar cry.

“Get off! Let go of me!”

“Oh look.  Quake's back.”  Talon lifted his head up.  The triumphant grin building on his on his face froze, then flattened.  “...Quake, who's that?  That's not a minicon.”  He stared, bewildered, his optics refreshing several times.  Even the Neutral let his crossed arms drop to his sides as his eyeridges raised in surprise.  “That's a--”

“A y-y-youngling.  I know.”  

Sunstreaker turned his head towards the footsteps, and his spark sank.

The light blue Decepticon was holding Hot Rod in a full-nelson, the youngling's feet barely touching the floor.  That is, they would be, if he wasn't frantically trying to kick at Quake, who grimaced and held onto his arms tightly as Hot Rod's heels pounded at his thighs.  Being dragged onto the ship and into the brig hadn't seemed to phase the young mech at all, who kept flailing and fighting, his hands desperately trying to reach for his backpack or his subspace pocket.

“...Quake? Where in the Pit did you find a youngling?”

“T-t-this is who ran out of the s-s-s-ship, Talon!”  He shook Hot Rod once, who yowled and tried to reach backwards to claw at him.  “He lured the o-o-other two m-m-mercenaries into a pit b-b-before I caught h-h-h-him.”

“...Sideswipe was never aboard the ship,” the Neutral realized aloud, his yellow optics wide.  “It was just this...this _kid._ ”

Talon kept staring at the struggling youngling for a long while, trying to comprehend what his appearance meant.  He suddenly whipped his face back to Sunstreaker, who was grimacing helplessly at Hot Rod.  The Decepticon raised a finger, his jaw sliding open, as he pointed back and forth between the Autobot and youngling several more times, his cortex slowly making the connection.

When he finally did, a grin threatened to split his face, and he burst into laughter.

“Oh, this is just too much!”  He turned to sit and relax on the edge of the table and smirked down at Sunstreaker.  “A youngling?  Really?  You, with a youngling?  When did that happen?  How long have you been dragging a brat around?”

Sunstreaker didn't answer, but glowered at him, blue optics narrowed.

“Sunstreaker!” Hot Rod had finally realized that the Autobot was there with him.  He stopped struggling, though Quake knew better than to relax his grip.  “Are you okay?!”

“Do I look okay to you?” he deadpanned, his glare still on Talon, who looked more and more amused each passing second.

“Quake, do you believe this?  A youngling.  A real, live youngling.  I thought Megatron destroyed them all.”

“He's r-r-real, all right.”  Quake winced as he glanced at the scuff marks left on his thighs and knees by Hot Rod's kicking.  “Wild, too.  He was f-f-f-fighting the whole way here.”

“My friend, I believe we've done well this orn.”  He rubbed his claws together.  “Not only do we have a cargo ship, but we bagged one of the Autobot twins, _and_ a youngling.  Could this trip have gone any better?!”

“You want to h-h-hold him the whole way home?” Quake snapped.

The Neutral beckoned.  “Give him here.  I can pay you far more than your commander can, and you won't have to worry over an energetic youngling.”  He assessed Hot Rod with a look from helm to ped, eyeing the dents and scratches on his paint from scrambling through the woods.  “They tend to die prematurely when raised too close to war.”

“F-f-fine by me.”

“And me.  I'd rather have credits than a kid screaming in our audials.”

“What about the two m-m-mechs in the pit?”

“Leave them.  If they had that much trouble catching one youngling, they don't deserve payment, or a ride home.”

Sunstreaker gritted his dentals, his hands balled into fists and pulling at his restraints as Quake carried Hot Rod across the room to the Neutral.  “You lay a hand on him, and I'll tear out your spark casing.”  He hadn't realized how deep and acidic his voice had become until the words had left his mouth.  Yet he was ignored by all except Hot Rod, who tried to twist towards the Autobot, realizing the extent of his wounds.

“What did you do to him?!”

“Nothing that a monster like him didn't deserve.”  As Quake held him out, the Neutral took Hot Rod, then set him down on his feet, not bothering to restrain his arms when he was no longer fighting.  “You're safe now, youngling,” he said, far more gently as he took his shoulders and bent down towards him.  “Sunstreaker can't drag you around with him anymore.”

Hot Rod tried to step back, but the Neutral squeezed his shoulders tighter.  “He didn't drag me through anything.”

“You're still young, and naive.”  He went to rub the top of his head affectionately.  “Don't mind the Decepticons.  We'll get you back to Drega-3, get you set up with a room.  And then--”

There was a crack, a flash, and a wave of thick smoke.

Hot Rod pulled back and threw himself into the cloud billowing up from the thrown tree nut as the Neutral and two Decepticons shouted in alarm.  In such a small area the seed cloud had no room to disperse, and filled everyone's vision as they tried to find the orange youngling.  Sunstreaker gasped as the smoke washed over him too, the stench of organic material filling his intakes.

“What was that?! Where'd he go?!”

“H-h-he threw something!”

“I know that, but where'd he go?!”

“Grab him!”

Something banged into the other side of the table.  A small hand grabbed Sunstreaker's wrist.

He winced as Hot Rod tugged at the restraint, to no success.  He tried again, but the glowing strap would not budge.

“I can't...”

“Use the knife!”

The Autobot's voice had gotten the Decepticons' attention.  Shadows were moving in the smoke towards them.

The golden knife whipped out of subspace and powered on with a glow.  For a second Sunstreaker was bedazzled by it, not used to seeing such a weapon in another mech's hands.  The blade sliced through the restraint, barely nicking his armor in the process, though he didn't care at the moment.  His now-free hand helped pull Hot Rod up onto the table slightly so that the youngling could free his other wrist.

Hot Rod did so, the defunct strap falling to the side, dead.  Just as he finished, he happened to look up, and yelped, instinctively cowering down towards Sunstreaker's chestplate as one of the shadows fell over them.

The Autobot took that as his cue to cradle him and catapult both of them off the far side of the table.

The blades of Talon's claw crashed into the center of the table, where Sunstreaker's spark had just been.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“Go!”

A hand shoved Hot Rod to the side, away from the sound of heavier mechs pounding towards them.  The youngling barely caught sight of a golden blur charging back into the smoke, followed by a crash of metal, and a war cry that made his energon run cold.

He'd thought that only nightmares about Insecticons could do that.

Screams of pain and another enraged howl from the Autobot reverberated through the brig.  Hot Rod stayed low to the floor, using his size to his advantage in the small space.  Coupled with the smoke, it would be difficult to spot him.

The floor vibrated.

Recalling the encounter in the woods, he stumbled back and out of the way, just as a light-blue hand grabbed at where he'd just been kneeling, the Decepticon's hands patting at the empty floor instead.

“Gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha—AH!”

Quake jerked away, energon splurting from the wound on his arm.  Hot Rod held the knife out in front of him, ready to strike again.  The Decepticon sneered, spotting the orange young mech, but wisely retreated a step, out of range of another slash as Hot Rod tried to take the initiative and hopped forward.

The youngling had failed to watch his back.

“Aaaah!!”  Heavy arms wrapped around him from behind, pinning his arms to his side and lifting him up off the floor.  He squeezed the hilt of the knife in his palm, the blade swaying back and forth as he tried to stab behind him, but could not move his arms enough to strike effectively.

“You're too young to understand this all now,” the Neutral hissed in his audial, “but I'm getting you away from the fighting.  This war doesn't need to breed more monsters.”  He started to walk backwards, dragging Hot Rod towards the exit. “You'll understand when you're older.”

“No! Let go!”

“Quiet!”

“SUNSTREAKER!”

And, as if summoned from thin air, the golden Autobot was there.

The Neutral's yell was cut off by a fist smashing into his face. Instantly he let go of Hot Rod as he fell backwards.  Another hand, black, smeared with energon, grabbed his arm so tightly that it nearly dented his lighter armor as he was pulled away from the Neutral.  He was shoved under the ruined table, the Autobot gesturing for him to hide, before Sunstreaker returned to the groaning mech on the floor.

There was a shriek of metal, and a howled, gurgling cry.

For once Hot Rod did as he was bid and crawled further under the table.  The knife stayed in his hand, and his huge optics darted back and forth, not knowing what direction the enemy might come next, not after the Neutral had gotten a jump on him.  Something shook the room, but it wasn't Quake.

Sunstreaker was pounding his fist into something.  Again, and again, and again.

Hot Rod crouched down. There was a groan, cut off by another pounding of metal, and he tried to not imagine how close it sounded to special attacks on his game chip.  

Someone swore, not Sunstreaker, and scrambled forward.  The Autobot hit the Neutral one more time before facing his last opponent. Another flash of gold.  The twin of Hot Rod's knife swung through the air, and the other mech's vocalizer gargled in static.

The youngling squeaked as a metallic body crashed into the floor next to him.  He shoved himself backwards, trying to get as far from the Decepticon as possible, until his back crashed into a table leg, and he put his hands over his helm to protect himself from whatever happened next.

Nothing tried to touch him again.

It took him a breem to realize that the battle was over.

The room's vents finally began to clear the smoke from the tree nut, revealing the extent of Sunstreaker's warpath.  Closest to the table, Quake had died with his hands covering up his throat.  Talon lay slumped next to the wall a little further on.  Dents covered his body, evidence of him grappling with the Autobot as soon as he'd been freed.  Further than that lay the Neutral.

A silver sphere oozing with fresh energon sat beside his unseeing optics.  From within it, a faint blue light fluttered briefly, then faded away.  Sunstreaker's foot kicked it out of his way, sending it rattling across the floor.

Hot Rod didn't respond at first to the Autobot's footfalls getting closer to him.  An image from the game chip, the heavyset warrior stalking towards his downed opponent, flashed through his mind, and he could not bring himself to come into view.  Instead he crouched in the shadows, wide blue optics watching from his relative safety.

Sunstreaker stopped in front of the table.  His weight adjusted on his peds, his engine revving and sputtering at his movements, though he ignored the pained sounds as he bent down far enough to offer a black hand underneath the table.

Hot Rod hesitated for far too long as he stared at the energon on the Autobot warrior's hand.

“...Hot Rod?” The voice was uncharacteristically wary.

He snapped himself out of the spell and crawled forward.  As soon as he'd taken Sunstreaker's hand, the Autobot pulled him out, his other hand taking the back of the youngling's helm to hold him still as worried optics assessed him.

“Are you hurt?”

He had to think about the question and check his HUD, then shook his head.  “But you are.”

“I'll be fine.”

“You said that before, and you weren't,” he spat accusingly.  His shoulders raised as he gathered himself.  “You made me leave you, because you thought you were going to die.”

“...I lived, didn't I?” he asked, his voice finally betraying his exhaustion.

Hot Rod's answer was to crash into him and wrap his arms around the mech tightly.  Sunstreaker hissed as he wobbled and lifted his arms.

“Easy, kid! Ow!”

But Hot Rod ignored him, instead pressing his forehead into his chestplate.  Sunstreaker's faceplates squeezed in pain, yet he didn't attempt to pry the youngling off of him, letting him do as he wanted.

Eventually, when he realized that Hot Rod wouldn't let up, and was trembling as he held onto the warrior, he bit back the pain, leaned forward and gingerly returned the gesture.

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The two Decepticons glared hatefully at the end of the blaster pointed lazily at them.

“We've been stuck out here for two orns now,” one of them snarled.  “I'm low on fuel, and got mud in places that I'd rather not say.  Are you really going to shoot us?”

“Like Sharticons in a barrel,” came the voice above.

“I thought you Autobots were above that,” the other barked upwards.

The mech kneeling at the edge of the mudpit cocked his head to the side at his two prisoners.  “We are.  But as you can see, there's few other Autobots around to tell me otherwise.”

The second Decepticon raised his eye ridges.  “Then...you're not with the other one?”

“...What other one?”  The mech's grin faltered, and he held his blaster steadier.  “What are you talking about?”

“The one we chased here.  Him and his--”

“Shh!”  The first Decepticon hissed at his comrade.  “Shut up!”

“No, no. Please, do go on.”  The mech gestured with his blaster.  “What other Autobot?  Did he have a designation?”

But the second Decepticon clamped down on his vocalizer. He grimaced upwards, and after a few minutes of silence, the Autobot sighed through his vents and climbed to his feet.

“If you won't talk, then I see no point in wasting my time here--”

He was cut off by the shockwave of an explosion rocketing through the forest.  Trees whipped to the side, debris flew in all directions, and the Autobot stumbled and caught himself on a tree trunk, thankfully stopping him from falling into the mudpit and left to the mercy of two peeved Decepticons.  The force of the detonation passed quickly, leaving the woods eerily silent, all for the ringing in his audials.

“...What in the Pits was that?!” came a shout from the hole.

The Autobot didn't answer, instead looking up, scanning the skies.  He could see the rising black smoke coming from several klicks away, illuminated by the flicks of orange and yellow.  Something was burning.

A moment later, a cargo ship lifted off from near the explosion's source, it's engines roaring as it powered it's way out of the tug of the planet's gravity.

“...Must be their Autobot friend,” the blue mech murmured to himself.  He watched the cargo ship fly away, towards the sunrise on the horizon, and crossed his arms in puzzlement.  “But what's another Autobot doing all the way out here?”

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

The rest of the repairs to the cargo ship had to be completed in space, even with the critical threat of having no way to detect enemy ships or measures to fight them off.  Yet neither Sunstreaker or Hot Rod could stomach sitting on the planet any longer.  Luckily for them, the materials that were needed to fix the hull, wiring and get the weapons and sensors back online were easily cannibalized from the Decepticon warship.  As soon as they had what they needed, Sunstreaker had left a dozen bombs strewn through the warship, and taken off shortly after they detonated.

They'd salvaged other resources as well, like energon, but neither of them had been in a state to care about taking personal belongings either.

Now, bored from polishing his armor, Sunstreaker was regretting not searching for some entertainment for himself.  He sat in the commander's chair, one leg crossed over the other as he swiped gentle circles over the armor on his forearm.  The golden surface gleamed the reflection of his face back at him.

Without a medic on board it had taken him a long while to repair himself.  Hot Rod had no training in anything medical whatsoever, and the poor youngling had gotten a crash course in field treatment as he'd handed over tools and wiring to Sunstreaker while the Autobot fixed himself.  Of course he'd shooed Hot Rod away as soon as the urgent work was done, but the young mech had been unusually quiet since then.

He suspected it had more to do than just with watching Sunstreaker shakily repair his own energon lines and circuitry.  

He looked up from his absent-minded polishing to Hot Rod's chair.  The orange mech had spent the last half-cycle toying with _Mighty Mechanics_ , building a structure that only a youngling could conceive; the walls were a mix-up of construction materials of whatever he had on hand, rooms were half-built and abandoned when another idea occurred to him, stairwells spiraled up to nowhere in particular, and the surrounding hills were littered with extra materials and half-built furniture and other items.  Eventually he'd gotten bored with this, and popped in _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ , the friendly sounds and pastel colors giving way to battle cries and gore.

Hot Rod selected the double-plated warrior, Sunstreaker's old favorite, and the computer randomly picked a mech with flame abilities. As Hot Rod's character charged forward, intent on getting in some heavy punches from the start, the computer's mech cackled and spat fireballs at him. One of them caught the warrior in the chest, sending him flying backwards, his life points subtracting rapidly as the front of his armor melted.

The computer's character advanced on the downed mech, his laughter driving to a higher pitch as he raised one of his claws.  He never got the chance to strike.  Hot Rod switched the game off, and shoved the controller away from him.

Sunstreaker paused and lifted an eye ridge.  The youngling had curled up in his chair, his arms hugging his knees as he stared at the blank screen, his optics seeing things that the Autobot never could.

Or rather, visions that the warrior had learned to ignore if he was to fight effectively.

It wasn't easy to recall when they'd been so commonplace that they'd ceased to be frightening to him and Sideswipe.

...Perhaps _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ hadn't been a good idea to gift to a youngling after all.

“Hot Rod.”

The youngling glanced over his shoulder at Sunstreaker's voice.  He was expecting his expression to be one of nervous fear, alarm, or haunted.  Instead...he looked embarrassed, as if he'd done something to earn the Autobot's disappointment.  Sunstreaker considered this, and the real cause for why Hot Rod must have liked _Warriors of Twenty-Four_ so much, then gestured by moving his head to the side.

“Come here.”

Hot Rod did, though reluctantly.  Sunstreaker slid over, allowing the smaller mech to sit beside him in the commander's chair. To Hot Rod's surprise, he pulled his worn card deck out of his subspace pocket, then laid them out on the console in front of him.  One hand organized the deck while his other arm wrapped around the youngling's shoulders, allowing Hot Rod to lean on him.

“So there's fifty-two cards in the deck. They're split up into four groups, and each group has thirteen ranks.  In most games the object is to have the best hand of cards.  They're stacked like this...”


End file.
